Populism in Europe: a primer

EU President Herman van Rompuy has called populism "the greatest danger for Europe". But what exactly is populism? And why are EU leaders feeling so threatened by it?

Nigel Farage: no friend of Herman van Rompuy. Flickr/George Carrick. Some rights reserved.Already
in 2010, a good five years before a populist coalition government would be
formed in Greece, then EU President Herman van Rompuy called populism “the
greatest danger for Europe” (Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, 9 April 2010). Since then, many establishment voices
have done the same, from German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the editors of the New York Times. What all warnings have
in common is that they (1) come from people in power; (2) are vague on the
exact meaning of populism; and (3) claim that populism is (omni)present in
European politics.

Historically
populism has been a marginal political phenomenon in Europe, unlike in the
Americas (North and South). In recent years populist parties of left and right
have gained electoral successes throughout Europe, although their effects on
European politics have so far remained fairly limited.

What populism is (not)

Populism
is a buzzword in the media around the world. There is virtually not a
politician who has not been labeled populist at one time. In fact, accused
would be a better term, as most people use populism is a Kampfbegriff to defame a political opponent. Few politicians
self-identify as populist. Those who do usually first redefine the term in a
way that is closer to the popular use of democracy than of populism.

In the
public debate populism is mostly used to denounce a form of politics that uses
(a combination of) demagogy,
charismatic leadership, or a Stammtisch (pub) discourse. None of the
three are accurate understandings of populism. While some populists might
promise everything to everyone (i.e. demagogy) or speak a simple, even vulgar,
language (i.e. Stammtisch discourse),
many do not. More importantly, many non-populist populists also do this,
particularly during election campaigns. Similarly, while some successful
populists are charismatic leaders, some are not, and many successful
non-populists are also considered charismatic.

Instead,
populism is best defined as a thin-centered ideology that considers
society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic
groups, ‘the pure people’ and ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that
politics should be an expression of the volonté general (general will) of the people. This means that populism is a particular
view on how society is and should be structured, but it addresses only a
limited part of the larger political agenda. For example, it says little about
the ideal economic or political system that a (populist) state should have. Its
essential features are: morality and monism.

The key point is that populism sees both groups as
essentially homogeneous, i.e. without fundamental internal divisions, and
considers the essence of the division between the two groups to be moral. Consequently,
its main opposites are elitism and pluralism. Elitism sees the same major
division, but considers the elite to be pure and the people as corrupt.
Pluralism has a fundamentally different worldview than both elitism and
populism, seeing society as divided into several groups with different
interests and favoring a politics based on consensus between these groups.

Contrary to what defenders and opponents may claim,
populism is neither the essence nor the negation of democracy. To
put it simply, populism is pro-democracy, but anti-liberal democracy. It
supports popular sovereignty and majority rule, but rejects pluralism and
minority rights. In the European context, populism can be seen as an illiberal
democratic answer to problems created by an undemocratic liberalism. Criticizing
the decade-old trend to depoliticize controversial issues by placing them outside
of the national democratic (i.e. electoral) realm, by transferring them to
supranational institutions like the European Union or to (neo-)liberal
institutions like courts and central banks, populists call for the re-politicization of issues like
European integration, gay rights, or immigration.

A
final point to note is that populism is neither right nor left; or, perhaps
better, populism can be found on both the left and the right. This is not
exactly the same as saying that populism
is like a “chameleon,” as it is not necessarily the same populist actor who changes
colors. Populism rarely exists in a pure form, in the sense that most populist
actors combine it with another ideology. This so-called host ideology, which
tends to be very stable, is either left or right. Generally, left populists
will combine populism with some interpretation of socialism, while right
populists will combine it with some form of nationalism. Today populism is more
on the left in Southern Europe and more on the right in Northern Europe.

Populism in Europe

Although populism has a long history in Europe, it
has always been a marginal political phenomenon. It emerged for the first time
in Russia in the late-19th century. The so-called Narodniki were a relatively small group
of urban elites who unsuccessfully tried to stir a peasant revolt. While
unsuccessful in Russia, Nardoniki did have a strong influence in Eastern
Europe, where several agrarian populist parties existed in the early 20th
century. Most of these groups had little political influence in the largely
authoritarian states of that period. And while both communism and fascism used
populist rhetoric, particularly during the movement stage, both ideologies and
regimes were essentially elitist.

Post-war Europe saw very
little populism until the 1990s. There was Poujadism in
France in the late-1950s, the Danish and Norwegian Progress Parties in the
1970s, and PASOK in the 1980s, but all these movements were largely sui genesis rather than part of a
broader populist moment. This changed with the rise of the populist radical
right in the late 1980s. Although the oldest parties of this group, like the
National Front (FN) in France and the Flemish Bloc (now Flemish Interest, VB) in
Belgium, started out as elitist parties, they soon embraced a populist platform
with slogans like “We Say What You Think” and “The Voice of the People.” In
recent years a new left populism has also emerged in some countries,
particularly in Southern Europe.

Table 1 lists the most
important populist parties in Europe today – only the most successful party in
each country is included. The third column gives the electoral result in the
most recent European election of May 2014, which vary from 51.5 percent to 3.7
percent of the vote – note that countries without a successful populist party
are excluded (e.g. Luxembourg, Portugal or Slovenia). On average, populist
parties gained some 12.5 percent of the vote in the last European elections;
not insignificant, but hardly a “political earthquake” as the international
media claimed.

Table 1.
Main populist party results in 2014 European elections and most recent
national election (and change to previous similar election)

Country

Populist Party

%EP14

%Nat

Rank

%Total

%Change

Austria

Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ)

19.7

20.5

3

29.8

+1.5

Belgium

Flemish Interest (VB)

4.1

3.7

10

5.6

-5.7

Bulgaria

Bulgaria
Without Censorship (BBT)

10.7

5.7

6

10.2

+2.9

Denmark

Danish People’s Party (DFP)

26.6

12.3

3

12.3

-1.5

Finland

Finns
Party (PS)

12.9

19.1

2

17.7

-1.4

France

National
Front (FN)

25.0

13.6

3

20.5

+16.2

Germany

The
Left

7.3

8.6

3

10.5

-1.0

Greece

Coalition
of the Radical Left (SYRIZA)

26.6

36.3

1

42.1

+6.1

Hungary

Fidesz
– Hungarian Civic Union (Fidesz)

51.5

44.5

1

65.0

-4.3

Ireland

Sinn
Fein (SF)

19.5

9.9

4

11.3

+3.7

Italy

Five
Star Movement (M5S)

21.2

25.6

1

51.3

+5.6

Lithuania

Order
and Justice (TT)

14.3

7.3

4

7.3

-5.4

Netherlands

Party
for Freedom (PVV)

13.2

10.1

3

19.8

-5.6

Norway

Progress
Party (FrP)

--

16.3

3

16.3

-6.6

Poland

Law
and Justice (PiS)

31.8

29.9

2

39.9

+7.8

Romania

People’s
Party – Dan Diaconescu (PP-DD)

3.7

14.7

3

16.1

+13.0

Slovakia

Direction-Social
Democracy (Smer-SD)

24.1

44.4

1

63.4

+11.4

Spain

We
Can (Podemos)

8.0

--

--

--

--

Sweden

Sweden
Democrats (SD)

9.7

12.9

3

12.9

+7.2

Switzerland

Swiss
People’s Party (SVP)

--

26.6

1

27.8

-1.7

UK

United
Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP)

27.5

3.1

3

13.2

+7.6

A better insight into the electoral and political
relevance of populist parties is provided by the results in the most recent
national elections. The fourth column gives the result of the most successful
populist party in the country, the fifth column its ranking among all national
parties, the sixth the total electoral support of all populist parties in the
country, and the seventh column the change in the total national populist vote
between the most recent and the previous national election. Here are the most
important lessons to be drawn.

First,populist parties are electorally successful in most European countries.
In roughly twenty European countries a populist party gains at least 10 percent
of the national vote. Second, all populist parties together score an average of
ca. 16.5% of the vote in national elections. This ranges from a staggering 65
percent in Hungary, shared between Fidesz and the Movement for a Better Hungary
(Jobbik), to 5.6 percent in Belgium. Third, while the overall trend is up, most
populist parties are electorally volatile. Few populist parties have been able
to establish themselves as relatively stable political forces in their national
party system. Fourth, there are huge cross-national and cross-temporal
differences within Europe. While some populist parties are brand-new (e.g. M5S
and Podemos), others are several decades old (e.g. FN, FPÖ, The Left, SVP). Similarly, whereas some parties are on the up (e.g.
DF, SYRIZA, UKIP), others are in a downfall (e.g. PP-DD and VB).

When we are focusing only on
the (minority of) European countries where populism is a major political
phenomenon, there are four important conclusions to draw. First, in five
countries a populist party is the biggest political party – Greece, Hungary,
Italy, Slovakia, and Switzerland. Second, populist parties gained a majority of
votes in three countries – Hungary, Italy, and Slovakia. However, in at least
two of these countries the main populist parties are strongly opposed to collaboration.
The situation in Hungary is most striking, as both its main governmental party
(Fidesz) and its main opposition party (Jobbik) is populist. Third, populist
parties are currently in the national government in seven countries – Finland, Greece,
Hungary, Lithuania, Norway, Slovakia, and Switzerland. Greece is unique in that
it has a populist coalition government of a left and a right populist party.
Fourth, and final, in six countries a populist party is part of the established
political parties – Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Poland,
Slovakia, and Switzerland. This is important to note, as populism is normally
associated exclusively with challenger parties and deemed incapable of
establishing itself in a political system. Yet, while populist parties have to
be extra careful not to be considered part of ‘the elite’, populists like
former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi and current Hungarian premier Viktor
Orbán have been successful at retaining their
cleverly constructed ‘outsider’ status in power.

Why is populism successful (now)?

Given
the immense academic interest in the phenomenon of populism one would assume
that we have a good understanding of why populist parties are successful and,
even more specific, under which circumstances they rise and decline. This is
not the case. Most analyses of European populism focus almost exclusively on
one type of populist parties, notably the populist radical right, and
particularly its non-populist aspects. However, immigration has little explanatory
power for populist parties in countries that have little immigration (like
Hungary and Poland) or for populist parties that don’t oppose immigration (such
as Podemos or SYRIZA). At the same time, the most popular theories are often
too broad and vague. While crisis and globalization have some relationship to
the rise of populism, globalization is related to everything and crisis is
usually undefined and simply used whenever a populist party becomes successful
(making the ‘theory’ tautological). The following four reasons are also quite
broad, and to a certain extent vague, but indicate some important factors that
address both the demand-side and supply-side of populist politics.

First,
large parts of the European electorates believe that important issues are not (adequately) addressed by the political elites.
This relates to issues like European integration and immigration, on which
established parties have long been unwilling to campaign, as well as
socio-economic issues like unemployment and welfare state reform, particularly in
light of the current economic crisis. While it seems fair to argue that
political elites have indeed been less forthcoming and successful in addressing
important issues, and to a larger extent than in previous periods (i.e. before
the 1990s), what is more important to note is that large parts of the European
populations have come to perceive this as a major problem. This has created widespread
political dissatisfaction, which is a fertile breeding ground for populist
parties, but also for other anti-establishment parties, such as Ciudadanos (Citizens) in Spain.

Second,
national political elites are increasingly
perceived as being “all the same.” Again, the perception is more important than
the reality, although the two are not unrelated. While commentators have
decried the so-called “end of ideology” since the late 1960s, there is little
doubt that the situation today is much more extreme. Responding to the
structural transformation of European societies as a consequence of the
“post-industrial revolution,” including the decline of the working class and
secularization, the main established parties have moderated their ideologies
and converged strongly on both socio-cultural and socio-economic issues. The
emergence of the “neue Mitte” (new
center) and “Third Way” on the center-left, which by and large transformed
social democratic parties into center-right parties targeting the same voters
as the Christian democratic and conservative-liberal parties, alienated a large
part of the remaining working class and left more ideological voters of both left
and right without a political voice.

Third, more and more people see the national politically
elites as essentially “powerless”. Again, perception and reality are closely
linked, even if many people will necessarily be accurately informed. In the
past decades European elites have engaged in one of the most amazing transfers
of power from the national to the supranational. Rarely have politicians so
happily marginalized themselves. Of particular importance was the Maastricht
Treaty of 1992, which has taken many important issues out of the national
democratic realm and transferred them to the much less democratic EU sphere.
This was, of course, most notably the case for the countries that joined the
Eurozone, which no longer control their own currency or monetary policy. At the
same time, the process of “cognitive mobilization” has made the European people
better educated and more independent, and consequently more critical and less
deferential toward the political elites. Getting mixed messages from the
political elites, who claim to be powerless in the case of unpopular policies
(“the results of the EU/globalization/US”) but in full control in the case of
popular policies (“my successful economic policies”), European populations feel
confident to judge their politicians to be incompetent or even deceitful.

Fourth, the media structure has become much more
favorable to political challengers. Until at least the 1980s the established
parties controlled most of the important media in Europe, be it party-owned
newspapers or state radio and television controlled by parties-appointed
boards. While active censorship was rare, most journalists self-censored
stories that challenged the interests and values of the political mainstream.
Consequently, critique of immigration or European integration was long
marginalized, while major corruption, particularly involving elites from several
established parties, was left uncovered. This is no longer possible in a world
dominated by party-independent, private media and an uncontrollable Internet.
Not only do all stories and voices find an outlet, populist stories and voices
are particularly attractive to a media dominated by an economic logic. After
all, scandals and controversy sell!

Finally, while the previous four factors have
created a fertile breeding ground and favorable ‘discursive opportunity
structure’ for populists, the success of populist parties like the FN or SYRIZA
is also related to the fact that populist actors have become much more
“attractive” to voters (and media). Almost all successful populist parties have skillful people
at the top, including media-savvy leaders like Beppe Grillo (M5S), Pablo
Iglesias (Podemos), or Geert Wilders (PVV). They can not only hold their own in
political debates with leaders of established parties, but they are often much
more adept at exploiting the huge potential of new resources, such as social
media. For example, for years Wilders dominated the Dutch political debate
purely through Twitter. Just one well-constructed tweet would be picked up by
journalists, who would then force established politicians to respond, and
thereby helped Wilders set the political agenda and frame the political debate.

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A
slightly longer version of this article was published in Greek in The Books’ Journal, Vol.55, May 2015.

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